Bloodier than Black
by thequeenwillruletheboard
Summary: They were good, respectable, honorable people. Now, they wish they could say that much. Inuyasha and Kagome, two different people united only with a goal: the Shikon Jewel. AU


**AN: This story was originally written for my good friend Whitewolfffy's birthday in 2011.**

**Enjoy!**

**Disclaimer: All rights go to the copyright owners of InuYasha. **

* * *

><p>Bloodier than Black<p>

Smooth fingers slid swiftly over a keyboard. Their adjoining eyes scanned the screen, trying to figure out the code to break the firewall that kept her from messing with the system.

One of the hands moved to the girl's hair, moving the ponytail it was gathered in, getting off the portion of her neck it was occupying. The hand returned to the keyboard, moving this way and that, hitting the desired keys.

Sighing in frustration, Kagome closed her eyes and leaned back in her chair.

Just then, the earpiece she had tucked in her hear buzzed to life. The scratchy voice on the other end crackled, and spoke, "Blackbird! There's no time for hesitation. Break it!"

"I'm trying! It's just proving to be harder than I thought!"

"Just get it done, you need to get out of there soon."

Her hands resumed their position on the keyboard, and she glanced over her shoulders to scan the room.

Other than the lit screens of computers and camera monitors, the room was completely dark. Filing cabinets lined the walls behind her. The rest of the room's walls were covered in screens: monitors displaying the video data of cameras dispersed throughout the building, and one computer screen, hooked up into the main administrator account.

The screen connected to the computer was the one she was paying the most attention to, working to hack into the operating system controlling the cameras that gave the image on the other screens.

Kagome Higurashi was trying to create a malfunction in the camera system, replacing the video feed with a still frame of an uninhabited hallway. It was a precautionary measure to make sure security could no longer see who was passing through the hallways of the Onigumo Electronics Company's headquarters. She was sitting in the surveillance room on the third floor, as she was commanded to by the scratchy voice that had given its input through her earpiece.

The scratchy voice was a higher-up in the organization she worked for, Egenevre. It was an organization of specialists that was pretty much run by crime lords to acquire things- mostly things that were particularly valuable, and in most cases, shiny.

Kagome had worked for them for four years, ever since she was nineteen. She'd joined them because she thought it was a perfect distraction from the way her life had taken a spiral downward. When she was seventeen, her parents, grandfather, and younger brother died in a bus crash. She had smiled before then, had laughed, and had been able to truly care about something. Since then, nothing. It was as if she had died with them. And now, she worked for Egenevre.

Egenevre, that holed her up in Onigumo's headquarters, to acquire information on the Shikon Jewel, the most coveted gem in the world. In English, it meant the Jewel of Four Souls, and it supposedly granted the holder a wish. It was said to be in the possession of a famous jeweler that it was given to after its original owner had died. Egenevre knew that it wasn't, and it wasn't known, to most people, that it wasn't.

One person that knew it was missing, and possibly, its location? Naraku Onigumo, CEO of the company she was infiltrating. He kept the information tucked safely away within the building, as well as his brain. Shame, almost, she was going to get it, however she could.

Though, no matter what Egenevre said, the whole thing just seemed sketchy. A jewel that granted wishes? Really? It was probably just pretty looking. Like a genie lamp you'd buy at the witchcraft store that you'd only end up putting incense in because it's otherwise useless.

The faces of her family flashed in her mind what seemed like the seven hundredth time that day, and she pressed on, thinking of a password that would let her turn off the cameras. She entered in various product numbers, and significant dates in the company's history, which she had learned when she researched into the company's history.

"Oh!" she exhaled in surprise at her idea. "Hey, what's Naraku Onigumo's birthday?"

The scratchy voice swooped in. "November seventh, nineteen sixty-three. Why?"

Kagome's eyes brightened, "Password. The CEO's birthday just seems blindingly simple."

She typed in the numbers corresponding to the date, with a whisper accompanying the typing, "One…one… seven… one… nine… six… three…"

All of a sudden, the password entry window disappeared, and the one she home page popped up. She froze all of the videos, and shut down all of the cameras, allowing her to move freely in the building without having to worry about anyone seeing her.

Signing out of the camera control center, she began to stand up, lifting herself off the leg she kept folded under her while she sat. She bounced on her feet, trying to return blood to them, and ridding them of the needles stinging their bottoms.

Her earpiece spoke, "Blackbird, get out of there. Head to the fifth floor via the main stairs. Eliminate any security on the way."

"Roger that, captain." Crossing to the door, Kagome glanced around, while quickly pulling her small handgun out of its holster that rested lightly on her hip.

Opening the door, she exited into the hallway.

A different figure dressed completely in black crossed into the main hallway on the fifth floor of the Onigumo Electrics Company, keeping himself pressed against the walls to avoid being seen by the security cameras.

Inuyasha reached a corner in the beige wall he was attempting to blend into, and peeked around it into the corridor beyond. He spotted a camera, the only means of security in the hall. Funny, though. It should be blinking, the little red light on the side of the camera. It wasn't. Had someone already killed camera visuals in the surveillance room on the third floor? That was sure nice of them.

He too, had an earpiece that brought him the lovely tones of a scratchy voice telling him what to do. "Blackhawk, there should be three guards in the corridor you need to use. Eliminate them all."

"You got it." He rolled his eyes. There was a feeling in his gut it would be a bloody night. He hated nights like these, but they paid. Wrong as it was, it was reality.

It wasn't like he wanted to become a murderer. He'd been one of the good guys before it happened, him joining the agency. He had been someone a woman would be proud to take home to her mother and father. He had attended the university, had been about to inherit a share in the family company. All in all, he'd been quite well off.

In the midst of all this, he had begun to feel like there was something missing. His life wasn't going down the path he had planned. He could stay along the path, content, for awhile longer. He and his fiancée were living happily, and were going to get married in a month and a half- until she had been killed in a drive-by shooting. After that, it was as if he'd jumped out of a helicopter into the Pacific Ocean with no swimming gear, parachute, or other flotation device.

It was two months after her funeral the organization found him.

The organization that ordered him into the headquarters of the Onigumo Electronics Company to gather information from their CEO, Naraku Onigumo, on the whereabouts to the Sacred Jewel. It was a jewel he knew well, he hardly knew a family like his that didn't. His reasons for so readily accepting the job (not like he had much of a choice) were a tad bit personal.

Peeling himself away from the wall, he walked to the hallway the voice had indicated. Peeking around that corner, this time, he calculated the shots needed to make the security good and dead.

Though, at that point, they wouldn't be much of security.

His targets- a gangly ginger, that was awkwardly standing alert; a blonde, surfer-looking guy, that was just standing there, and still managed to look like he was trying too hard; and a huge, muscular African American, that, to anyone normal, would make them potty all over themselves. Good thing Inuyasha wasn't really normal, huh?

Nodding to no one in particular, Inuyasha pulled his gun, and whipped himself around the corner, and pulled the trigger, aiming for the temple of the dark one- he thought it would be best to take out the biggest threat first.

The gangly guy scrambled for his gun, clumsily fumbling with the holster, hardly able to get it open by the time Inuyasha put a bullet in his chest.

Mr. Trying-Too-Hard stood there looking shocked, and hesitated for too long. The gangly man fell, and Inuyasha had already turned the gun on him by the time he managed to get his gun in his hands and aimed. He took the opportunity to shoot, and Inuyasha dodged out of the way, raising his gun to be able to hit a vital point. It took but a few seconds, and metal was stuck in his neck.

Okay, so, it wasn't Inuyasha's proudest shot, but hey, whatever worked, worked.

He resisted the urge to be sick, and looked at the ceiling, so that he didn't have to look at the three men on the floor.

The scratchy voice came back, "Good. Now, get to the fourth door on the right, and go through the stairs there to the sixth floor. Wait for further instruction. Oh, and any unexpected guests? Eliminate."

"Aye, aye."

Kagome climbed the last few steps of the main stairs, up onto the fifth floor. Sighing, she asked, "Mysterious Voice Boss, where do I go from here?"

"Blackbird, head down the corridor. Take your second left."

"Got it." She headed through the path indicated, quickly, but quietly. The gun she was holding was securely by her side, hung by her leg. Her head swiveled back and forth, keeping an eye out for anyone that shouldn't see her.

Just before she reached the hallway she needed to turn down, a male voice called out to her. "Hey, who are you? Turn and show yourself!"

She turned alright, but she pulled her gun up without hesitation.

She knew she shouldn't have, but she hesitated. There was a good, full moment where she just looked at him. She didn't want to pull the trigger. His shaggy light brown hair fell cutely around his defined brown eyes. He had dimples, which only attributed to the reluctance. He seemed like such a good guy, the way he sounded, the way he seemed. He'd make a girl very happy someday, if he hadn't already.

Kagome was not this kind of person. She didn't want to do this. But she had to.

Tears almost sprang to her eyes, when she pulled the trigger.

Not wanting to linger, she continued to her objective, hurrying down the hall to get away from the man bleeding on the floor behind her.

The voice chimed in, "Second door on the right."

Nodding, though no one could see it, she ran to it, and was fully ready to fling it open. It only made a decently loud noise, the locked door rattling around in the frame. Agitation bubbled up for a moment, and then died down, as she pulled a pin out of her hair. She swept it into the lock, and felt around for what she had to pick. With a click, the door swung open.

It revealed small room, maybe a six-by-six space, a spiral staircase that descended into blackness smack dab in the middle of it. As opposed to the hallways, that were nicely carpeted, with warm walls and hospitable lamps, this room was tiled with linoleum, painted white, with two hospital or schoolhouse LED lights installed in the ceiling. She at least felt somewhat comfortable out there. Here, she felt a chill rise up her back, feeling as if someone would magically manage to jump her from behind, like they were hiding in the corner of the ceiling.

Just to make sure, she turned a full circle, scanning the room up and down. Clear of any wall-clinging ninjas.

"Blackbird, go all the way down. When you reach the vault, I'll give you the pass code to get in. There, you'll go into the system that no one but Naraku can access, and you'll find the information we need on the diamond."

"Right on." Kagome began the descent, shoes making a dull clank on the metal staircase.

The vault was almost like you'd expect to see in a movie- thick metal door, with a wheel-like doorknob, and a keypad on the wall next to it.

"Type in four-four-eight-one, and then when it asks for verification, enter Naraku's birthday again."

Doing as she was told, she punched in the numbers. A small beeping sound rang out, and she moved to open the vault.

Inuyasha kept his back pressed against the wall, stepping up the stairs evenly, one by one, at a slow and steady pace. He held his gun pointing upwards, raised to his face. Calloused fingers were carefully wound around it, on poised steadily over the trigger, a precautionary measure against any attack.

When he reached the top, he pulled himself from the wall to peep around the corner. Two guards, one big guy, and a shrimp were pacing down the hallway, one going up, one coming down.

_Perfect,_ he thought. _Shoot the one facing you first, then catch the other one off guard. _

"Blackhawk! What are you doing?! You know your orders! Eliminate!"

Using his full force, he whipped himself around the corner, pointing his gun to aim at the guard facing him (which just happened to be the fat one). The guard's eyes grew wide in shock, causing a ripple effect to tear through the rest of his face. The ripple could only last the few seconds between the pulling of the trigger and the bullet hitting its target.

The skinny guy turned around- confusion and alarm written in the lines of his face. As if it were one smooth movement, his shoulder spinning to face Isaac, then the bullet pulled it back around.

Feeling his stomach clench, he asked the voice, disgusted, "Eliminated enough for you?"

"Just shut up and keep moving."

"Where?"

"Right. Take the right corridor."

"Alright." He set off, avoiding a look in the murdered men's direction. Walking straight past them, he reached the end of the wall, and peered around the corner. _Clear. _No guards, just another split hallway. "This place is such a maze! How can there be so many corners and doors and hallways in one building?"

"One more flight of stairs, Blackhawk. Hang a left, and you'll see them. The seventh floor is mainly Naraku's office. You'll know where to go from there. Get the information."

He headed up the stairs, and onto the seventh floor. Sure enough, the office was right in front of him, huge doors beckoning him in.

Kagome walked into the vault, and she saw a single computer sitting in the middle of the room. The room was circular, and walking into it felt like stepping onto a ball of energy. Running through the grey steel plating, ran purplish-pink veins of light, that faded to white as they climbed the walls. They sort of reminded her of Tron. Why a grown man needed a fancy vault with pink lights all over the place, she didn't know. Compensation issues? Daddy problems?

She stood in front of the circular platform that the computer was perched on, and set her hands down at the keyboard once again.

It didn't take too terribly long to break in, as the password was still Naraku's birthday. Kagome searched through the files in the computer, and finally came up with what she needed.

The diamond was located somewhere in Tokyo, in the possession of a woman named Kaede Haruka. Judging by her picture, she had to be sixty, at least. Where the woman gained the money and/or power to possess the Sacred Jewel, she had no clue.

According to the database, the woman's security guarded it at all times, and she'd spend about two to three hours a day sitting there with it. Jeez, did this guy plant stalkers on this poor old lady?

Well, she wasn't very poor. The Jewel, remember?

Clicking further into the database, Kagome spotted the name of the company building that held her corporation, and the Shikon Jewel. What's up with these people having corporate offices that they keep random things secured in them? Couldn't it be someplace much more exciting like a maze of underground catacombs that she had to go exploring to find this gem? Then again, this building was enough of a maze, let alone a real one in a complicated network of underground tunnels.

Obtaining a few last details from the files, she uploaded the information into an email, and sent it off to the email address the scratchy voice had given her to use for situations like this.

Finished with the computer, she logged out of it, so that it appeared untouched.

"I just got the email. Blackbird, get down to the lobby using the stairs in the corridor behind the door you will be coming out of. Get out of there as fast as you can."

Kagome got up, and went to leave.

Inuyasha enclosed the door handle in his fist, and threw the door open, straight into Naraku's office.

He looked up from the papers he was writing on, and Inuyasha got a good look at Naraku Onigumo.

Naraku was, to say the least, extremely unattractive. He appeared bloated, and his eyes were like little beetles, black and beady. His hair was unnaturally long, for a man, and for a businessman. It looked greasy to the touch, and it sort of summed up the way he came off as a person. He seemed sleazy, like your nose would wrinkle if he walked in the room.

"Who are you and what are you doing here?"

Inuyasha lifted his gun, "The Sacred Jewel! What do you know about it?"

Naraku scoffed, "The Jewel of Four Souls? As if I would tell you!"

Inuyasha pointed the barrel straight in Naraku's face, "You had better."

Naraku laughed, "If you kill me, there'll be no one left to tell you where to find it."

"If you're not going to tell me anyway, what's the point?"

A glint of fear flashed across his face. "Fine. It's hidden in Tokyo."

"Where in Tokyo?"

Naraku looked away from Inuyasha's face, almost like he was trying to pretend that he hadn't heard.

A hand wrapped around Naraku's throat, "Spill."

"The… old hag took it. Haruka. It was in San Francisco for a display, and then the old crone took a liking to it, and talked with… a guy named Hosenki, I think. Bought it off him, they made some sort of deal. Don't exactly know what. Well, the lady lives in Tokyo, and took it with her. It's under security now. Her security."

As Naraku finished talking, Inuyasha walked around to the back of him. "Sorry, Naraku. But you have to die anyway," he pointed his gun at the back of Naraku's head, "At least you'll live on. Through me."

Naraku gasped, and Inuyasha could have sworn he saw his eyes widen from the view of the back of his greasy head. A pull of the trigger, and there was a hole in Naraku Onigumo's head, that now lay in irrefutable dormancy, a pool of dark crimson staining the paperwork littering the desk.

"Blackhawk, use the main staircase to get down to the lobby, and get yourself out," the scratchy voice spoke.

"On my way."

Kagome cursed these buildings, and her superiors for telling her to take the stairs everywhere. She walked just about ten flights of stairs, on her way back down the lobby. Wasn't there an elevator to take? Oh yeah, even if she wanted to use it, she'd have to hunt it down for half an hour with how maze-ish the layout was. And she'd get her paycheck cut for disobeying orders. Whoops.

It didn't stop her for being angry, and running over every hateful expletive she could think of in her head.

When she forgot to be angry, the voice of the man she shot on the fifth floor kept running over and over in her head. "Hey! Who are you? Turn around and show yourself!" It was like when you had a song stuck in your head, but you only know two lines of the song, and it replayed over and over. Except the resulting emotion wasn't just frustration and aggravation, it was haunting. Like the sound of it would chase her for years, and not let her go.

Finally on her last few steps, the scratchy voice chimed in, "One more target, Blackbird. Just around the corner, eliminate, and then get back here."

"Got it."

Inuyasha didn't think that seven flights of stairs could be so tiring, but they were.

The fatigue didn't even help to distract him from the blood he had spilled that night. Who knew knocking off a sleaze-ball like Naraku Onigumo would trouble him so much? He supposed that because, at heart, he knew he was the good guy. Below all of the rubbish piling up on the outside, he was still that man that was about to be married and a successful business and family man.

It really didn't help that there was a man lying in the path of the stairs, bleeding out of his chest. Inuyasha couldn't even remember killing him…

He wanted to slump against the wall and just exist for awhile, but that's when the voice decided to jump back to life, "Blackhawk. There's one more enemy on the lobby level. Get rid of it, and get out."

"Yep."

The lobby at Onigumo Electronics was fairly symmetrical. The front desk was in the dead center. Parallel to the front edge of the desk, were walls that cut off at equal ends of the lobby. If you turned to look inward at the front desk after turning the corner, you'd see a stairwell on either side. One, the main stairs. The other, the back staircases.

Kagome was around one corner, the one on the right, with the back staircases. Her gun was held level with her face, emotional wall built already to deal with killing another man. At this point, all she wanted was a shower and her bed.

Inuyasha held himself around the other corner, the barrel of the gun also held parallel to his eyes. He shut them for a moment, then readied himself to attack, and then abandon the place, along with all the dead bodies within it.

Each heard a crackling in their ear, "Eliminate!"

They threw themselves around the corner, and-

Bang!


End file.
